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Entry: The Judicial Shakedown Link: http://www.takimag.com/site/article/the_judicial_shakedown#27178 Post contents: And this: “At the dawning of the Third Millennium, a serious question confronts democracy. There is a tendency to see intellectual relativism as the necessary corollary of democratic forms of political life. In such a view, truth is determined by the majority and varies in accordance with passing cultural and political trends. From this point of view, those who are convinced that certain truths are absolute and immutable are considered unreasonable and unreliable. On the other hand, as Christians we firmly believe that “if there is no ultimate truth to guide and direct political activity, then ideas and convictions can easily be manipulated for reasons of power. As history demonstrates, a democracy without values easily turns into open or thinly disguised totalitarianism” (Centesimus Annus, 46). Thus, it is important that Christians be helped to show that the defence of universal and unchanging moral norms is a service rendered not only to individuals but also to society as a whole: such norms “represent the unshakable foundation and solid guarantee of a just and peaceful human coexistence, and hence of genuine democracy” (Veritatis Splendor, 96). In fact, democracy itself is a means and not an end, and “the value of a democracy stands or falls with the values which it embodies and promotes” (Evangelium Vitae, 70). These values cannot be based on changeable opinion but only on the acknowledgment of an objective moral law, which ever remains the necessary point of reference.” Message of John Paul II to the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, February 23, 2000, available at http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/speeches/2000/jan-mar/documents/hf_jp-ii_spe_20000223_acd-sciences-plenary_en.html Sent at: 2008 12 01